1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to information processing apparatuses that expand functions by installing/uninstalling a plug-in and, in particular, to technologies in which information added/deleted in accordance with the expansion of functions is managed.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years and continuing to the present, apparatuses (i.e., information processing apparatuses) such as management servers and MFPs (Multifunction Peripherals) shared by plural users manage and operate all sorts of information so as to provide the users with prescribed services. The information is constituted of one or more attribute data and organized into a unit having a prescribed meaning.
Here, it is important how the information is added to and deleted from the apparatus. Valid and invalid information are caused to be present in accordance with an increase and decrease in the functions of the apparatus. The efficient handling of the valid and invalid information greatly influences the information processing ability of the apparatus.
For example, in a case in which attribute data are simply added to all sorts of target information so as to add information to the apparatus, all the target information must be updated. Therefore, if there are so many target information items to be handled, the processing performance of the apparatus may be reduced. Furthermore, when temporarily-unused data and data containing significant information are taken into consideration in a case in which target attribute data are simply deleted so as to delete information from the apparatus, users may suffer disadvantages.
In view of this problem, Patent Document 1 has proposed an information processing technology in which defined attributes are made valid/invalid to perform the addition/deletion of the attributes in a pseudo manner.
The information processing technology disclosed in Patent Document 1 can provide a configuration capable of minimizing influences on a processing ability because data are not written in and deleted from a storage device such as a HDD (Hard Disk Drive) when attribute data are added/deleted. In addition, losing significant data can be prevented because the data are not explicitly deleted from the storage device. In the case of this information processing technology, however, all sorts of information managed and operated by the apparatus must be determined in advance, and information that users may use must be provided in advance. In other words, even uncertain information as to the use by users must be provided in the apparatus, which in turn wastes a region (persistent region) for storing the information.
Furthermore, when the information of the apparatus is used, it is not necessarily managed in a unit that users want. In this case, users must organize separately-managed attribute data into one piece of information in the apparatus.
In view of this problem, Patent Document 2 has proposed an information processing technology in which additional attribute data in a selected and instructed item are expanded in accordance with a request for referring to an information reference when the additional attribute data are displayed together with basic attribute data constituting the target reference information.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2007-128365
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2007-058658
However, in the conventional information processing technologies disclosed in Patent Documents 1 and 2, the management and operations of the information of the apparatus shared by the users and respective functions is not satisfactorily considered.
The apparatus shared as described above must provide a circumstance for flexibly expanding functions. The expansion of the functions is performed in such a manner that a software component (hereinafter referred to as a “plug-in”) for expanding the functions developed by a software vender is installed/uninstalled.
The information managed and operated by the apparatus is also contained in the plug-in. Accordingly, when the plug-in is installed in the apparatus, the information is introduced in the apparatus.
For this reason, in the information processing technologies described above, when the plug-in provided by a third vendor is installed in the apparatus, it is not possible to assume what information is (attribute data are) added to the apparatus. Therefore, the information processing technologies cannot flexibly deal with an increase and decrease in information.
Accordingly, it is necessary to provide a configuration capable of dynamically increasing and decreasing attribute data in consideration of an increase and decrease in information.
Furthermore, in order to add/delete attribute data to/from all sorts of information handled in the apparatus, a software component is present.
Therefore, it is necessary to change the software component that performs processing on data operation such as addition/deletion of attribute data.